[Idle-dev] IDLEfork / Docs / Startup etc.

[Bruce Sherwood]

--On Wednesday, October 10, 2001 12:36 +1000 "Stephen M. Gava" 
<elguavas@users.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> But in any case the point is,
> wouldn't having the startup state configurable through a gui (and in the
> default config file) address that concern for those users you mention?

Yes. I was just inserting a general point, that one shouldn't automatically 
assume that users are working from a command line (or for that matter 
automatically assume that they aren't!).

It is true that the Python community has been heavily oriented toward 
Unix/Linux. But I'm very attracted to Guido's vision of "Computer 
Programming for Everyone" and have been pushing this vision with physics 
students whose first exposure to programming is VPython.

Python in general and VPython in particular represent a marvelous entree to 
programming. And most of these novice users have had and will have no 
contact with a command line interface. If we can propagate Python for 
everyone, the number of nonexpert users of Python could be much larger than 
the number of expert users.

Having ranted, I should also say that it is impossible to do a fully 
acceptable job for both experts and novices without configurability, so the 
path you're taking is the right one.

As for F1 for Python help, it's no big deal, though I still feel that IDLE 
isn't an application, it's a Python environmental component. After all, 
IDLE most definitely isn't an "application" in the technical sense; it's 
not an executable binary.

Bruce Sherwood